7/4/2024 Route: Northeast Ridge Posted On: 7/5/2024, By: Swerner Info: What an incredible day! I'll try to be helpful instead of just gushing about how great it was. Ditch Trail up to the lake has a few creek crossings without rocks/logs, one got to mid-thigh and fast-moving. Right before the lake is a small amount of snow, but I was fine in trail runners. No snow up to the saddle with Mt. Daly. After the saddle, there's a LOT of snow up to just below K2. Snow was very hard on the ascent and made for basically a staircase up with spikes on trail runners. Had an axe, didn't use it outside of moral support. Stashed snow gear a bit before K2. Went up and over K2, a nice warmup technical section. From there, basically zero snow. The ridge was a lot of fun, and made it up to the summit at about 8:30, starting at 4:40 (we're fast on non-technical parts). Heading back down, had a minor routefinding mishap and somehow traversed below the knife edge by about 20 feet. It felt less sketchy than the knife edge, but I can't in good conscience recommend it since it was an accident. Had minor difficulty on routefinding back up K2, so be observant on the way out so you can find your way back. Down after K2 had a series of excellent glissades. Used the axe there and wouldn't glissade without it. There are a series of snowed over gullies after that, and those are steep enough that you wouldn't want to slide. Spikes plus trail runners had a lot of sliding, so I had to anchor in on the axe very carefully. I'd recommend at least one of (axe, mountaineering boots) for this section, but trail runners made the rock section very easy with some smears. Total of 8-10 summited today, which was way less than I expected for the 4th of July. Incredibly beautiful adventure, easily my new favorite 14er! A nice combo of backpacking skills, snow travel skills, and technical climbing skills. And avalanche-debris icebergs in the lake were the cherry on top! |
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6/23/2024 Route: Northeast Ridge Posted On: 6/23/2024, By: Rg15 Info: I thought long and hard beforehand about which I loathe more: giving up vert (creek trail) or cold water (ditch trail). I decided both are equally awful but the ditch trail would probably be faster. Seriously muddy for the first few miles. The creek crossing is about knee deep and fairly swift. Poles were quite helpful here. Be careful if you decide to go this way. Some snow on the way up to the lake, but nothing terribly inconvenient. The switchbacks up to the Daly Saddle are mostly snow free. Past the saddle, there is near total snow coverage until a couple hundred ft below K2. I used crampons and an axe for the gully crossings right after the saddle. Beyond K2, the route is basically in summer conditions. Snow complicates some obstacles on the upper East Face, but it is almost completely avoidable with careful route-finding. Made the summit a bit after 10:00 AM, and started back down after a couple minutes, not wanting to push my luck with any afternoon storms. Plenty of fun glissading in the basin back below K2. One of my favorite mountains, but be seriously careful up there. The rock on the last several hundred ft is even more horrendously loose than I remembered. |
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5/27/2024 Route: Secret Chutes Posted On: 5/28/2024, By: aksean22 Info: Climbed and skied off the summit of Capitol Peak yesterday with Ben (akcasey12) and Hayes (to cool for social media). Started from the Snowmass Trailhead. Patchy snow starts around 10,000' but was mostly short or avoidable. Continuous snow starts after a large field about 4 miles in at 10,500', flotation is needed past that. Camped at Moon lake Sunday night and got a very early start Monday morning. Instead of taking the knife edge, we opted to climb up our intended ski line, known as the Secret Chute. This connects to the standard route from Prairie Lakes basin near the end of the Northeast ridge before the final 400' of climbing, directly opposite of "death gully" on the Capitol Lake side. To get there, we skinned up towards K2 to 13,200', then skied the One-in-a-Million couloir in the dark and were at the base of the Secret Chutes by first light. The climbing was steep and it was nice to have two tools, but we did not need to break out the rope. (Note: this route only works in the the spring with supportive snow. It would be a chossy mess with significant overhead hazards in the summer, or wallowing in sugar snow in serious avy terrain mid winter. Skiers only ;) ) The last 400' of climbing is quite exposed, but the snow was consolidated and supportive. We stayed on the East face snow instead of taking ridge direct. We summited just before 8am and stayed just long enough to transition. The sun was already heating things up and realistically we would have preferred to be dropping in at 7:30. A few steep turns and one long left facing traverse back to the Secret Chute. A 60m rope was just long enough to make it through the steepest and narrowest section at the top. Hayes decided he was "feeling good" and skied it clean from the ridge (which goes at 60 degrees with a mandatory straight-line) needless to say I was impressed. Excellent powder the rest of the way down. A quick booter back up One in a Million, sweet corn all the way back to snow line and an enjoyable walk back to the car. Found some mystery snowshoe tracks on the way back that belonged to daway8, who we met in the parking lot. As he said, timing is super important right now. Very happy to have that one knocked out, especially in such good conditions! |
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5/27/2024 Route: Northeast Ridge Posted On: 5/27/2024, By: daway8 Info: Attempted Capitol as a day hike from Snowmass Creek TH via Moon Lake starting at midnight. Trail was totally dry to start with but the stream crossing at 1.5mi was raging pretty good. No easy to get across with dry feet so brought water shoes which only added 1lbs. Very invigorating at 1am. Not much snow until about 10k but crazy amounts of snow by the time you reach Moon Lake. Trail starts off very easy to follow but then turns into bushwhacking chaos where I picked the wrong way, staying up to the right instead of down near the stream and wasted a ton of time and energy. Reached the base of K2, where the Moon Lake route meets the standard route, at 9am only to have a small avalanche come down straight at me. I had time to sprint out of the way - it was just a cluster of rollerballs - but it was already crazy hot so I knew there would be more to come. Earlier saw a rock the size of a large boot that had rolled down a crazy distance, then rolled uphill 20 feet before turning and rolling down further. The marks in the snow from it tumbling were a foot or two apart meaning it must have come down fast. Didn't want to be up there when those missiles started launching so bailed with a successful recon of this winter route for Capitol. Looks like best as an early winter route before avy danger spikes. Met 3 guys who camped at the lake and successfully skied from the summit, going East Face to Secret Chute. They may do their own post but moral of the story is 9am is far too late to be heading for the summit right now. Will add pictures later. |
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12/22/2023 Route: Northeast Ridge Posted On: 12/23/2023, By: Will_E Info: Got Capitol yesterday in pretty good conditions. As expected, it was the sketchiest thing I've done, I wouldn't have figured out how to get up that ridge without my hero Screesurfer leading the way. I went up on Tuesday and put in a trench to Moon Lake. Screesurfer, McQueen and I started around midnight Thursday night, Brad had the same feeling I did last year after seeing Capitol from K2 and turned back. Long, hard day, 10:37 up, 7:23 down. |
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10/8/2023 Route: Northeast Ridge Posted On: 10/10/2023, By: niemeier314 Info: Summited on 10/8. I was able to manage with microspikes but I really wished I had an ice ax for K2. I wouldn't recommend traversing around K2 without ice ax and crampons. If not, I'd vote for climbing up/down K2 which was doable with microspikes. With microspikes, you should be prepared to do plenty of downclimbing 4th class terrain with them on. Knife's edge was basically free of snow. |
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10/7/2023 Route: Northeast Ridge Posted On: 10/8/2023, By: cwccardella Info: I made my second summit of Captiol Peak yesterday (10/7). My partner and I were expecting snow, but there was more than we anticipated. The snow started about a 1/2 mile before the lake and continued up to the Daly saddle in sporadic sections. The Daly saddle and basin is filled with snow, on average mid-calf deep, to even knee deep in certain sections. The north side of K2 is also snowed in, and an ice axe and crampons are highly recommended. We broke trail on the ridge, all the way to the peak, and the snow becomes more sporadic after the knife edge. There are plenty of steep snow sections on the route, with lots of mixed climbing. Downclimbing from the summit back to K2 is where the crampons were necessary, due to the softness of the snow, especially on the steep exposed sections. Capitol is no longer in summer conditions, and from this point on I would expect late spring, to winter-like conditions. I wouldn't recommend trying for the summit without Crampons, an ice axe, gaiters, and experience of how to use them in mixed conditions. |
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9/27/2023 Route: Northeast Ridge Posted On: 9/28/2023, By: shapovalovm Info: Still pretty much summer conditions, other than the walkaround of K2 on the north side, which holds some snow/ice. I just climbed over K2 and it was not too bad. Knife's edge is so much fun! The rock is solid and secure. In most of the places you can walk on the side. Very often there are ledges to the sides below as well and exposure does not feel horrible. Overall, I think it is a great fun place to be :) Sad it's kind of short. The most laborious and time consuming parts of the route for me were the first saddle to K2 and knife's edge to the summit. The former is just a ton of boulder hopping. The latter just never ends and navigation is not always obvious. At some point I realized that the motto must be "when in doubt, traverse around", because going up generally puts you in harder terrain or forces you to go down anyway. Foliage is beautiful up there and I think it's just before the peak colors. Saw 2 bears on the trail within the first mile after upper TH. Started ~6:15am, finished by 5:25pm. Oh, last note: I parked my Accord at 2WD TH only to later realize I could've driven it all the way to the upper TH. First 1.75m (of 2m) are very easy, the rest has a couple potholes and rocks. With careful maneuvering still looked doable. In fact, coming down I saw a Civic arriving to the TH. Note, you cannot park anywhere from lower TH to about .25 before upper TH. |
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9/23/2023 Route: Northeast Ridge Posted On: 9/25/2023, By: Shawn Ironman Info: Near perfect conditions, windy along the ridge and just above freezing. K2 is holding snow over the top and around the bypass on the right. We were the first group up and I went first through K2 and knife edge. About nine others were heading up as we went down. My first time on Capitol and the route finding and exposure in about a dozen different places along the route were extreme. |
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9/23/2023 Route: ridge direct to ne ridge Posted On: 9/24/2023, By: zootloopz Info: plenty of snow present on the north face above 13k and many pockets of shaded terrain all over the route. brought spikes, only used them once near the saddle on the way back. I'd recommend bringing them depending on your comfort level. ridge direct from saddle to k2 took 2 hours. plenty of class 4 and exposure to be found. saw someone trundle a very large boulder and the subsequent dust storm along the face around 13,800'. be sure to test your rock and be conscious of people that might be above you. |
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9/17/2023 Route: Northeast Ridge Posted On: 9/18/2023, By: yaymountain Info: Most of the snow that came down melted as of 9/17. Get 'er done soon! Couple minor snow crossings below 13K. North facing slope has snow but you don't really venture there except for some parts over and down K2. But really not anything major to worry about. I brought spikes but didn't need them at all. Completely dry from knife all the way to summit. A really amazing mountain and gorgeous area! |
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9/10/2023 Route: Northeast Ridge Posted On: 9/15/2023, By: mjordan Info: We summited on Sunday 9/10 so take it with a grain of salt. There has been snow up there since! Beautiful day on Capitol. Summited at 8:30am and saw some clouds way off in the distance so headed down trying to beat the 3pm snow that was forecasted. Ended up getting caught in a sleet/snow storm when returning across the knife edge. Terrifying and awesome at the same time. A couple snow crossings in the boulder field on the back side before K2 if you dont drop low. We just carefully crossed them and tried to use previous footprints. It would be a hell of a ride if you slipped, but not deadly. I liked going up and over K2 instead of around. Knife edge isnt as scary as people make it to be in my opinion, but still a great rush. Have fun and know its different up there every single day right now since the first snow has started. Oh yeah - take your rod theres tons of fish in the lake, we caught them all evening! |
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9/9/2023 Route: Northeast Ridge Posted On: 9/11/2023, By: constipated_pete Info: Snowfield crossing after Daly saddle was nothing to worry about. Busy busy day on the peak, including people with no helmets and lots of groups heading up from K2 at noon. Full sphincter shrinker of a day. |
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9/7/2023 Route: Northeast Ridge Posted On: 9/8/2023, By: kabal Info: Conditions are sublime. Just a few snowfields to cross on the backside. No ice ax/microspikes needed. Both routes (up and over, around) K2 are accessible. |
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9/3/2023 Route: Northeast Ridge Posted On: 9/5/2023, By: WildRover80 Info: There was a little bit of snow after the saddle, but spikes were not needed. The summit was calm and warm. We got blasted with rain on the way back to the truck. |